


the freedom to dream a little

by lalaiths



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 2, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 03:18:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13695753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaiths/pseuds/lalaiths
Summary: Mollymauk's an enigma all wrapped up in sparkly, distracting layers. Fjord tries to get a little closer.





	the freedom to dream a little

**Author's Note:**

> title from the other side from the greatest showman. this is just me trying to find a little space from what we've been given so far.

Mollymauk’s an enigma. 

All wrapped up in fancy sparkly layers and a sharp, sarcastic wit. He reveals nothing of himself while pulling back your layers with those cards of his, with that sparkle of his eye. Yet despite all of that, all those scars and lies, there’s a vulnerability to those red eyes, a waver that keeps him to the edge of the group. So when Molly asks where he’s going to be sleeping, weight on one back foot like if he has to he’ll take off running, and Fjord knows the look in that eye. The look of one about to lose everything he’s had all this time, and he can’t let him stay down in the tavern alone. 

He extends his room out of goodwill, though its only the one bed and that bed is small, it isn’t the tavern floor or the hearth by the fire. Better than waking up to have Mollymauk disappear, away from them to get into who knows what danger. Fjord’s no fool, though. Mollymauk helped them but there’s no better way to discover the secrets hidden than to let him get close, to learn those secrets and see past the lies. 

Fjord’s good at seeing past lies. He’s good at surviving. Better him than the girls; Beau and Molly would murder each other first and Jester would probably become best friends (he’s seen Molly’s kinder smile only once before, and only towards Jester), but she’d give everything and learn nothing. Better him than the wizard and the goblin girl who keep to themselves. If Molly’s going to be joining their little group, then he’s got to know if he can trust him, and what better way than this?

“You can take the bed if y’like,” Fjord offers, gesturing to the bed as he shucks his coat and boots against the table. 

“Oh, thank you, but no,” Mollymauk waves, dropping into the corner with his back to the wall, kneeling in all his finery and glittering in candlelight. “I prefer the floor.” 

That first night Fjord falls asleep watching through his eyelashes as Mollymauk fidgets with his deck, shuffling and reshuffling, over and over again. He wants to reach out and grasp that tight line of his shoulders, wants to pull him to the bed and tell him it’ll be fine, but Fjord doesn’t know that, not for sure. He doesn’t know this man, doesn’t know what he’s done or how he works. Doesn’t know his heart; so he leaves him there, to try and peer into the unknown.

In the morning, after he shuts the door on the guards, Mollymauk looks at him with something akin to interest. “That was a power move right there,” he says, and Fjord feels the heat rise in his cheeks. 

Of course, then Mollymauk’s entire world is altered, and slowly he withdraws from his usual snide grace without saying much at all. There’s something bitter bringing itself to the surface, a snarly tangle of ivy that Fjord longs to untangle. Molly’s a rose that can’t be touched for fear of catching skin on its thorns. There’s a minute tremble of his hands after he’s lost everything he knows. When he shuffles his deck now its more reasoning, like he’s considering the cards for the first time, trying with all his might to glean some purpose from them now he’s been set adrift.

\--

Mollymauk doesn’t say much to Beauregard on watch at the front of the cart. He spends the day staring off to the side, plucking interesting flowers from the fields they pass and tucking them into the folds of his robe. They snipe back and forth, sure, but Fjord can tell his heart’s not in it. Not like it was when he had a place, had a purpose and a home to go back to. Mollymauk never intended for the circus to be his life, no. Days are going to be the days you’re going to have, he’d said, but life twisted and changed in such unexpected, curious ways. 

On the road Molly takes the worst watch shift, waking before all the others and blearily staring towards the road, past the fire. Fjord watches him as he falls asleep, a dark purple silhouette softly shuffling through his deck against the night, as though they’ll give him the answers the wilderness won’t. 

When Fjord wakes, sputtering from a dream of the sea and the creature, Molly’s the one who reaches out first, who rests a palm on his chest to take a measure of just what came out of him. The one who meets his eyes and quirks an eyebrow and licks the seawater from his hand. 

“Weird,” Molly says like it’s a confession. As though he’s shocked anything could we weirder than him. That something so odd could happen to someone like him. Like he’s piecing together oddities and breaking open his past. 

\--

When Fjord sees the arrows in Nott and Mollymauk, Fjord freezes on the spot, eyes wide with terror. Jester flits from one to the other. When Molly gasps for air like a drowning man Fjord leans forward to help him up from a slow crawl backward. Their eyes meet, crimson gaze flicking over his face and wide with terror. 

“Why did we do that?” He chokes out and his voice is a wreck, hoarse and burned and shattered. It sounds like a man who hasn’t spoken aloud for years, like a man just breathing after drowning, after dying. There’s an arrow wound on his chest only barely healed over, and Molly clings to the arms holding him like he’s not quite sure they’re real. 

\--

It’s another tavern; smaller and smelling of smoke and full of refugees that Fjord finds Mollymauk, slumped over the bar with a green bottle in hand. His head is cradled in his arm, his tail is wrapped around the bar stool, and he’s passed out. Those tight shoulder muscles lax in sleep and misery. Fjord pries Molly’s hand off the bottle and pulls him up.

Mollymauk’s head drops back against his chest with a soft groan. Red eyes flicker up, blurry as they blink and focus first on his scar, then his eyes, then drop to his mouth. “Mmhm?” His voice is mangled and wrecked from smoke and drink, and he’s still got blood down his front from the arrow wound that’d pierced him. Fjord covers it with a hand. His other arm he wraps around Molly’s waist and pulls him backward off the stool. 

“C’mon now Molly, up y’get.” Fjord says, “This is no place to fall asleep.” 

Mollymauk stumbles when he does, all weight falling back against him. They both stagger before Fjord holds them upright. He brings them up the stairs together, wishing briefly that he was stronger, that he could swing him up into his arms and carry him. Molly’s hair brushes Fjord’s skin, a tickle against his mouth that smells of incense and wildflowers. 

At the top landing Molly stumbles. Fjord leans forward too far to catch him and together they fall in a pile. Fjord ends up with his legs bracketing Mollymauk. His head falls against Molly’s clavicle. There’s a moment where he jerks back, when their eyes catch. Mollymauk’s eyes are red and wide with panic that quickly hardens as he takes stock of their position. Fjord brackets him with his legs and his arms, and Molly’s smile is sharp as a knife when he leans his head forward and catches Fjord’s lips with his own. He catches them with his teeth, twisting his way forward hard and fast like the stab of a blade. Like an attack aimed straight for the heart to keep him away. Like this would be better than anything else he could have in mind. And Fjord could. He could push forward and take him right there on the landing of a tavern full of people who have lost everything. He could consume him wholly. Fjord’s kissing back before he realizes this, and jerks his head back like he's been stung, on his feet with Molly still on the floor. Molly who laughs, almost bitterly, laughs like he's shocked. Laughs like he can't believe he exists. 

“Now Molly,” Fjord chides, pulling him to his feet from between his legs. “Now’s not the time.” Molly’s eyes are misty and wide and he’s biting his lip hard as he pulls them the rest of the way into the room. When he tries to put Molly on the bed, the tiefling twists away from his grip and drops to the floor with a wave. 

“Floor,” he sighs like a gasp. “I prefer the floor.” 

And he drops like a stone, curling between the bed and the wall like he belongs there in the corner. Fjord drops to one knee in front of him, catching that hard line of his shoulders, that guarded look. When he reaches a hand to Mollymauk’s face he flinches first before he grins, that sharp smile, growing over his face until it nearly slits it in half. Fjord just wraps a wayward strand of purple hair behind one sharp ear, and then sits on the edge of the bed. 

“Alright darlin’,” He says as Molly twists their fingers together to drag his hand away from his face. He gives it to him, laying down on his side. “You win.” 

In the night, Molly twists and turns until he finally rolls flush against the side of the bed, sitting up with one hand against the side of the mattress and Fjord’s hand cradled in his lap. It’s quiet in the room save for Beau’s soft snores from the opposite side of the bed. It’s quiet enough to hear Molly’s soft whisper in the dark.

“I don’t understand you.” The lilt of his accent is soft and rolling, hardly more than a breath. He smells of dragon whiskey and he’ll have one hell of a crick in his neck, but for the first time, their faces inches apart, Molly sleeps and sleeps well. 

 


End file.
